Beneath Stained Glass Wings

by K Kazul Wolf

  I bare my teeth. They aren’t going to win that easily. I ram forward, horns angled at them.

  They hit me from the side, right on my temple. I stumble. The world blurs.

  No, no, no. If I lose consciousness, I’ll get captured, turned into the city, killed. They’ll kill Vito. I did nothing for that poor family. I’ve ruined everything, just because I didn’t take the time to realize what needed to be done, what should be done. I can’t save everyone on my own, one illusionist against a multitude of dragons.

  “No…”

  For being the daughter of an inventor, I think so very little.

  “So, this is your home?”

  I turn and watch Vito walk into my father’s and my own living quarters. He looks so strange, so out of place. With me at twelve and him almost fourteen, we’re about the same height, but his deep umber skin, the way he carries himself—he seems so much taller. Even with my wings as large as they are, he will always be infinitely bigger than what I can possibly fill.

  “No, I decided to lead you into a random stranger’s house. For fun.”

  He rolls his eyes, then turns back toward our bookshelf. The room is small, stone walls supported by slightly crooked beams, and the only objects are my father’s and my own cot in the corner, the gadgets and experiments littering the floors, walls, and ceiling, and my favorite: the bookshelf. It reaches the ceiling that’s tall enough for an adult dragon to walk easily in, volumes of all colors and shapes and sizes shoved into every open crack. So many stories and people and histories and discoveries that are only remembered through few precious words.

  I bet if Vito’s sister, Livius, ever heard her poor caretaker talk to her like that, she’d beat Kaudia so hard she’d have scars for the rest of her life. Or perhaps have another slave do it, since touching lesser beings like myself is so below her, against the laws.

  “Why don’t you boss me around?” I fidget with the edges of my gloves. He turns to me with a quizzical brow. “You know, like how your sister does with her caretaker. Or, well, how most other dragons do.”

  He shrugs, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Why should I?”

  “Because I’m an illusionist,” I recite, as if from a book. “I’m less than you.”

  “Ava…” He takes a couple of steps forward, taking my hands to stop me from my fidgeting. “You aren’t— You don’t mean so little that I—” He can’t seem to get it out. When did he get to be worse with words than me? He looks up, as if my ceiling might hold an answer. His eyes widen. “Are those wings?”

  I bite back the scowl. What was he going to say? Well, there’s always later. “Yeah, one of the ones my dad invented for my mom before she disappeared.” I know I’m not supposed to talk about her. I know my father will never explain anything about how or why she left, I know how people glared at dad and me after she was gone. I know she’s never coming home. But I remember her warmth and the scent of flowers she left in her wake, the way I always felt like things were okay when I was in her arms. So, as long as my father isn’t around, he can’t stop me from keeping her from existing in my life.

  He lets go of my hands, taking a step back to see better with eyes wide and mouth open. Oh, that look. He’ll be at this for hours, won’t he? They’re simple, devices made from metal and glass and mesh designed to help wingless illusionists fly. Well, not all of them. These were designed for one person. But if Vito knows how to do anything, it’s how to be curious.

  Vito rambles off question after question, and I recite the answers with a tired precision. Boredom settles in after a good twenty minutes, and I grab a book to flip through while he rambles on.

  “Hey, Ava? Do you suppose if we— Wait. That book. It’s in a different language.”

  A flush crawls across my cheeks. I slam the book shut. “No, it isn’t.” Books in any other language are illegal, something about the lies that other countries spread. My father loves them so much that I forget sometimes. And…I suppose I love them enough to forget, too. Maybe they’re full of lies, but how else would I catch small glimpses of other places, of the people and creatures that aren’t a part of Caelum?

  “Isn’t that against the Circle’s laws?”

  “Well, um, maybe.” I glance around the room. “But it’s so beautiful. Have you ever heard another language? This one is my favorite, and it’s a book of songs, which somehow makes it even more beautiful, and—” I bite my tongue. Now I’m rambling.

  He smiles. “I’ve never seen you so excited about something before.”

  I shrug, trying and probably failing to seem nonchalant.

  “Would you… Could you sing one?”

  “O-oh, but I’m not nearly as good as my dad. You should wait to ask him.”

  “Please.”

  My heart flip-flops as he gives me that grin of his. He doesn’t smile like this around his family. Sometimes, it feels like I’m not just a caretaker, and he’s not just my dragon. And I know it’s dangerous but…I like it this way. I don’t want to be just his caretaker.

  “O-okay.” My fingers fumbling over each other, I flip to my favorite, dog-eared despite my dad’s protests. And then, in a shaky voice, I sing. I don’t dare open my eyes to see his face. All I can hear are my flaws, where my voice cracks. But the words take over. I feel the same way I felt when I first heard it. The last note leaves my mouth and I shiver.

  Tentatively, I open an eye.

  Vito’s grinning wider than ever. “That was beautiful. Your voice is, well, really pretty. What was it about?”

  “Um, well,” I rub the page between my fingers. “Love.”

  The door creaks open behind us. I flap to my feet, hiding the book behind my back as my heart ricochets around my chest. Vito scrambles up, nearly falling over.

  “Ava, what a surprise! You’re back early. I thought—” My father pauses, his long figure bent under the archway. He examines Vito over the rims of his glasses. “Ah. A pleasure to have you in my house, my lord.” He bows, his voice suddenly stiff, formal, scary.

  “Please don’t call me that, sir.” Vito’s voice is on the edge of begging.

  “If you insist.” He straightens, staring down the young dragon. “I hate to ask anything of you, of course, but could I ask for some time with my daughter? Surely you don’t need her to escort you back at your age?”

  “I…” Vito looks to me. Like he’s actually looking to me for permission, the dragon looking up to an illusionist half-breed.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow?” I give a weak grin.

  “Yeah.” He walks toward the door, his hand brushing mine as he leaves.

  “Ava,” my dad says the moment the door clicks shut behind him. “You can’t bring him here. Never. Do you understand?”

  He sounds angry. Guilt and confusion whirl around my head, my gut. “But, Papa, what did Vito do?” What did I do?

  “Ava, darling.” He comes and kneels in front of me, reaching to take my face in his hands. “Ava, I know you love him, but he… You just can’t…”

  And then my dad does something I’ve never seen before, and never will again.

  He cries.

  What did I do? “B-but I know Vito hasn’t done anything. He would never hurt you. He would never hurt me.”

  The room shifts, everything looking a little tilted, little twisted. And I know this isn’t what happens next.

  “Oh, really?” my father says, his fingers digging into my cheeks. “Like you would never hurt me?”

  I can’t breathe. His tears slowly turn red. He leans forward to kiss me on the forehead, but all I can feel is blood. I’m drowning in it, gasping in the warm, sticky liquid filling my lungs—

  Something smacks across the back of my head. Hard.

  The world swirls into focus.

  A face floats into my vision. I squint. Maybe I’m still dreaming. His features are twisted, mutant, his nose splayed into two slitted nostrils, face covered in patches of scales. His armor is beaten up, the poor embroidery on the front o
f it a sad imitation of dragon wings.

  A guard.

  7

  The Ambassador

  The man grins and turns from me. “She’s up.”

  I’m at the edge of a large, long room with wide windows, stone walls, and a fine carpet lining the floor. For a brief second it reminds me of home, and I try to jump to my feet, fly backward—and find my wrists bound, my wings trapped in a painful, crude vice. Mutant guards line the walls, thick cobwebs cluster in the corners of the room, dirt and sand ingrained into the rug under my knees. It’s a finer place than anything I’ve seen so far, but the drab walls and worn floors are nothing like the shining marble floors and meticulous stone walls of Caelum.

  “Good.” A man sits at the far end of the room, in what might have been a throne until it lost one of its armrests. He wears a light blue ensemble with obnoxious ruffles, his great wings curled behind him as his great horns twirl high into the air. His cheekbones are high, eyebrows manicured to a perfect arc over his black eyes. He’s the man from the market. The ambassador. “But let’s finish with this last one before we deal with the winged fool.” His flat face shows little expression.

  Another guard in the room moves, her crooked tail trailing after her. A door creaks open at the opposite end of the hall, a woman with worn-looking fingers and heavily patched clothing stumbling in.

  The ambassador sighs. “You again.”

  Not deterred by his reaction, the woman walks about halfway into the room before bowing. “Thank you for seeing me, Lord Duryea”

  “You leave me little choice with how you loiter about.” Duryea scowls at her.

  “Sir, she was barely out there five minutes before she asked to come in,” the one with the crooked tail says. “And before—”

  “Quiet,” Duryea snaps. “She’s wasted my time, and that’s what matters. Hold your tongue.”

  The guard gives a jerky nod and retreats into a corner with her tail twitching.

  “New ones never know when to keep their mouths shut,” the guard next to me mutters.

  I flinch away from the sound of his voice. The movement draws the guard’s attention, and I wish I could shrink back into the wall when he snarls at me, raising his hand in a threat.

  “What are you here for this time? To give more excuses?” Duryea taps his fingers on his armrest.

  “We need more time. My husband became ill with a violent fever, and I haven’t had the time to pick up the work he wasn’t able to finish. Our youngest child is barely a few months old. As it is, I haven’t slept in four days.”

  She definitely looks it, swaying as she stands in place, deep circles beneath her eyes. Still, she stands with her back straight and her eyes locked on Duryea’s.

  Duryea’s fingers stop moving. “Then you’ll pay us instead of giving us product.”

  “We have nothing to give. This past month we barely could afford a roof over our head, and food rations…” She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “We weren’t able to earn a profit.”

  “Caelum doesn’t take kindly to getting less than they were promised.” His eyes narrow.

  “I’m sorry, my lord.”

  “Because of you, I will probably have to make a trip to the city next time it passes, apologize to the dragons since it’s been nearly two months with nowhere near the taxes you owe us. All that trouble because you couldn’t produce.”

  “I’m sorry, my lord.”

  Duryea strokes his chin. “It’s a good thing your husband is useful to us. You, however… Well, I needed an excuse to get a new carpet.” He motions to the guard with the crooked tail.

  The guard flinches. “B-but, my lord, she has a child!”

  Duryea’s eyebrows raise. “You’re questioning my judgment?”

  I look at the woman in the middle of the room as the guard clenches and unclenches her fists. She stares ahead with no focus in her eyes, starting to slump over. A tear slides down her cheek when the guard takes her first step forward.

  “What—” I start as the guard steps behind the woman, then draws her sword.

  Once again, the woman closes her eyes.

  Before I can so much as blink, the guard with the crooked tail swings her sword and removes the woman’s head from her shoulders.

  Her scalp hits the floor before her body falls, rolling across the carpet. There’s blood. So much blood. My chest constricts and I don’t feel like I’m getting any air, despite the strangled gasps.

  “Take it to her family.” Duryea’s voice sounds distant and muffled, like I’m in another room. “Maybe that will help them understand that we don’t take laziness lightly.”

  Footsteps sound on the floor, then dragging, and finally, the door shutting.

  “Remind me to beat that one later,” Duryea mutters. “She’s well-trained, but she thinks too much.”

  “Yes, my lord,” the guard next to me says.

  “Now, the gnat.” He waves his hand again.

  I cringe when the guard grabs my hands and drags me forward, dropping me in the sopping puddle of blood.

  The warm liquid seeps between my fingers, the metallic smell filling my nostrils, then my head. It’s like I’m not here. I’m back where this all started, watching a dragon killing someone I can’t let die. I’m slipping in blood, grabbing at my sabre, barely drawing it in time to sink it deep into the ribcage of one of the creatures I revere and respect more than anything else. I’m drowning in sprays of blood, crawling so slowly out from under her body, watching as the life slips away from his eyes. By the time I reach him, he’s already dead

  “I must say,” Duryea’s voice makes me jump, my head snapping up, “I knew there was a population of exiles within the boundary of my moat, despite my trying to eliminate them. It’s hard to keep them out without a true wall, and having all those merchants passing in and out. In fact, in my very sparse free time, I enjoy hunting the wingless rodents.” He sighs, leaning forward and stretching out his great wings to paint a rainbow across the carpeted floor. “But I never thought that I’d find a winged in my town. You would think an escapee would be smarter than that, especially one with your crime.”

  My heart stops beating, my blood draining of heat. “You…you know?”

  He smiles. “Of course I do, little caretaker. Not only did you manage to slay one of our gracious dragons, but your own father? How cruel a person you must be.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing back the tears. I didn’t kill him, I— “How did you find out?” The words barely come out as a whisper.

  “Word travels fast when it’s not only one of you little winged creatures, but a dragon that runs from Caelum. It’s a wonder he came with you, you know. With what you’ve done.”

  “He…he doesn’t know.” I bend over, my head touching my wet knees, caked in blood. Tears fill my eyes and I try to blink them back. “I didn’t mean to. It wasn’t on purpose. I didn’t—”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s my stroke of good luck you came to me in the end. You’ll catch quite the reward from Caelum.”

  All this for a reward. Like I’m cattle, like I mean nothing more than that ground-dwelling woman who he slaughtered without a thought. Maybe I don’t, anymore. Maybe I never did.

  The idea hits me from somewhere unexpected, slapping me out of my thoughts. I need to get out of here. “I can’t go back.” I look up, focusing on the ambassador’s great mane of horns, his set of claws.

  He laughs. “You think they’ll let you live if I let you go? You’re a caretaker who ran before the sacrifice. Your head is priceless.”

  “Sacrifice?” What on earth is he talking about? Or…maybe it’s the same thing the Story Collectors were talking about. The secret that’s “better if I don’t know.” I take a shaking breath and ask, “What is that?”

  He laughs, a high-pitched, obnoxious cackle. “You’re a funny little gnat, you know that? Maybe I’ll enjoy you for a little bit longer, before the city comes to take you back.” He snaps his fingers, rising
from his chair and striding across the room. “Bring her. Use force if you must, but try to keep her legs intact. I’m awfully fond of legs.”

  My stomach turns, shivers wracking through my whole body so that the bindings on my wings jingle. I wriggle against my bonds, pushing against my captor with an urgency I’ve never felt before. More guards come forward, at least a half-dozen, trying to hold me still. But I won’t let them hold me down. I don’t give a damn if they kill me; they aren’t sending me back to Caelum and that man is not touching me.

  A crash echoes through the room. Something light blue flies past me, slamming into the wall next to the pathetic throne.

  “My lord!” A few hands leave my body and I struggle harder.

  “As weak as ever, Duryea. Can’t even protect yourself from a simple illusion.”

  That voice. I pause for one moment, glancing at the doorway.

  Carita.

  “Ah, the rebel shows her face again.” Duryea gets to his feet, brushing bits of dust off himself. “I wondered if you had left town.”

  She grins like the vicious illustration of a jackal from my dad’s books. “You only wish.”

  Carita lunges across the room at the illusionist. He tries to flap away toward the window, but his wings are caught in her projected mirage.

  The air grows humid around me, my breath heavy as they keep each other at bay with illusions, pushing and pulling at each other’s blood with grunts and gasps. The air shimmers with color and shape.

  A fleshy smack sounds to my right and makes me wince away as one of the guards falls, his face smashed in. Bricius stands over him with a morning star in hand, a mountain over the man. He swings again, flinging another guard feet away, kicking the last one holding me so hard that bones crack. A sick shiver curls through my gut and Bricius grabs my chains, crushing them like he had crushed the men.

  He shoves something into my arms, knocking me back. The sabre. “Fight,” he orders, then turns and digs the spikes of his weapon into the leather-armored shoulder of a guard.